Breaking: The Lone Ranger Murders Captain Jack Sparrow

20 Sep 2013

Via… oh yeah, via Breitbart News, actually, and via John Nolte. Disney has ended its deal with Jerry Bruckheimer which, I guess, puts the delayed Pirates 5 film in even more doubt than it had previously been.

I’m reluctant to call anyone a genius besides myself — I don’t feel comfortable speaking for others — but did he not just totally predict this?

Steven Spielberg on Wednesday predicted an “implosion” in the film industry is inevitable, whereby a half dozen or so $250 million movies flop at the box office and alter the industry forever. What comes next — or even before then — will be price variances at movie theaters, where “you’re gonna have to pay $25 for the next Iron Man, you’re probably only going to have to pay $7 to see Lincoln.” He also said that Lincoln came “this close” to being an HBO movie instead of a theatrical release.

Yeah I like Iron Man? And was a very early supporter of the project and the casting of RDJr? But let me let everyone know right now I’m not paying $25 to see Iron Man.

It’s very strange– I turned off of movies after Avengers. I liked Avengers, but I also had so much investment in the film that after I saw it (and saw they did a good job) I felt like I was donzo with the blockbusters. And I’d been seeing blockbusters all my cinematic life — since Raiders of the Lost Ark blew me away and taught me that movies could actually be… I don’t want to say magic, but wondrous, surely.

I just don’t seem to care anymore. I wonder what’s caused this — because so much of the public seems to feel the same way. Sexton reported here that that Giant Robot vs. Godzilla-Analogue move Pacific Rim was pretty good. Not great, but good. But I had no interest at all.

I don’t know. Maybe I just finally grew up. Or maybe Hollywood has just gotten too reliant on the Giant CGI thing as its primary atraction. I’ve now seen a great deal of CGI — much of it awful (The Hobbit) but some of it outstanding. I’m afraid I just can’t be much more impressed on that front.

The best action sequence in the past 20 years was the shoot out at the end of LA Confidential. No big trickery, no explosions. Just, as Conan said, a few standing against many. It worked because I cared. The film earned it.

Not only do most movies not earn it, but they don’t even bother making a down payment.

I just saw Star Trek. It was okay. Very colorful. Very loud. Very loud. The film was literally terrified to permit a single quite moment. A good example of a quiet moment that didn’t happen is the attempt to move from one ship to the other through space. Great moment for silent tension. But they didn’t do it. It was all Shouty and Hectic with a preposterous amount of Space Debris that has to be dodged video game style and an unexplained amount of Reckless Velocity.

It’s not that the scene was bad, per se. But it indicates how little faith Hollywood has in the audience, and how little faith it has in itself to keep someone’s interest if there aren’t Explosions and Dramatic Shouting ever single second.

It’s not that this sort of thing is bad… it’s that too much of anything is bad. We’re bored of it. Or, at least, I know I am.